It occurred at 11:20 a.m. on Saturday 15 June1996, when the IRA detonated a bomb containing 1500kg (3300 lb) of explosives. The bomb was located in a Ford van parked two hours earlier in Corporation Street, between the Arndale Centre and the city's Marks and Spencer store, right in the heart of the city's shopping area.

This was the largest IRA bomb ever detonated in Great Britain. Although warnings received in the previous hour had allowed the evacuation of the area, 206 people were recorded by the ambulance service as having been injured. Most windows in nearby buildings were blown out, and falling glass caused the majority of the injuries.

The blast was audible over 8 miles (13 km) away.

It still remains the biggest terrorist bomb ever detonated in Britain.

The IRA had packed 3,500 kilograms of explosives into a lorry. When the bomb went off, it exploded at 2,000 feet per second. The sheer power of the blast shattered the city centre around Marks and Spencer and the Arndale shopping centre.

Two hundred people were injured, some seriously, mostly by flying glass and debris. Despite a huge police search and a million pound reward, nobody has ever been arrested for the bombing.

John Stalker, former Deputy Chief Constable of Greater Manchester, remembers it well: "As a cop, I don't normally believe in miracles, but how on earth you can explode a lorry load of high explosives in the middle of Manchester on a busy day and not kill someone?"